Introduction

The topic of beam weapons comes up every once in a while as there are several current and potential future ships that should have access to them. I've seen a lot of good ideas, but I've yet to find one that I think fits perfectly with the flavor and intent of beam weapons. So I wanted to propose the following and explain my reasoning behind my choices. I don't claim to have come up with any of these ideas; I'm just trying to put together the ones that I think are the best.

Criteria/Constraints:

1. Existing ships that should have access to beam weapons include: Aggressor, Firespray, Lambda, TIE Defender (did I miss any?)

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We have three options for giving ships access to beam weapons: create a new beam weapon slot, use the existing system slot, or use the existing cannon slot. A new beam weapon slot could prove tricky. Usually new slots are added via titles or modifications, and are limited to a specific ship type. Since there are at least four existing ships that should have access to this slot, it would be difficult to introduce a new type of slot for beam weapons. At first glance, the system slot seems like a good fit, but neither the Firespray nor TIE Defender have that slot, and there are several ships with system slots that probably shouldn't have access to beam weapons. So that leaves us with the cannon slot. This actually works out pretty well since all the ships that should have beam weapons already have a cannon slot, and it gives some good options to the Aggressor which is the first ship to have multiple cannon slots. Using the cannon slot also opens up beam weapons to B-Wings, YT-2000s, and Scyks; but it's not hard to imagine that those ships would be good candidates for beam weapons in their respective factions so I think it's okay.

2. Beam weapons affect a target ship and don't typically do any physical damage. This makes them a perfect fit for filling a support role much like the HWK and Lambda were intended to fill.

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The support role involves buffing allies and debuffing enemies rather than doing direct damage. This means that any abilities we give to beam weapons could involve applying stress, reducing stats, denying actions, removing tokens, etc.

3. Beam weapons require energy from the ship and effort from the pilot to keep the ship they are "beaming" in front of them for the duration of the beam.

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This criteria rules out the beam weapon being a passive boost that is always on. Ideally a ship using a beam weapon should still be able to attack their target too. So that really just leaves the beam weapon requiring an action to use. This actually works out very nicely because it gives the Aggressor a way of using both cannon slots in the same round (one to debuff and the other to attack) and gives more options for Experimental Interface.

So with all of that criteria in mind, here are my ideal beam weapons...

Tractor Beam

Action: Choose 1 enemy ship at Range 1 that is within your firing arc. Until the end of the round, reduce the chosen ship's agility value by 1 (to a minimum of 0). You may remove 1 evade token from the chosen ship.

Cannon Slot

Cost: 4 or 5 (subject to change based on playtesting)

The small tractor beams that go on little ships aren't very powerful. In the computer games which people probably most remember them from the tractor beam wasn't capable of redirecting an enemy ship. As such, you'll notice that I don't have anything on here that affects the maneuverability of the ship itself, and so it doesn't encroach on the role of the ion token at all. It does limit a ship's ability to dodge attacks, though, which I think fits the flavor much better since the small tractor beams were created to make it easier to hit very agile fighters. I imagine it being particularly effective against Phantoms, Interceptors, and A-Wings.

Jamming Beam

Action: Choose 1 enemy ship at Range 1 that is within your firing arc. Until the end of the round, reduce the chosen ship's primary weapon value by 1 ( to a minimum of 0). You may remove 1 focus token or 1 blue target lock token from the chosen ship.

Cannon Slot

Cost: 3 or 4 (subject to change based on playtesting)

The jamming beam is meant to shut down a target's offensive ability. It only reduces the attack value of the primary weapon, but the ability to remove a focus or target lock from the target can greatly hinder secondary weapons too. The jamming beam works great as a jousting tool, but it can also be used by relatively cheap ships to chase and reduce the effectiveness of your opponent's top aces while your more expensive ships focus on taking down the rest of the enemy squad.

I was thinking of beaming weapons as a weapon that deals damage through multiple targets in a straight line.

FRACK YOU TIE-SWARMS!

Some really nice out of the box thinking. You've really put some good thought into this concept. I like the idea of them being actions, that take up the cannon slot, and the synergy with experimental interface is great.

The Jamming Beam, could add stress in some way to make it similar to the Jam action on the Epic ships.

I was thinking of beaming weapons as a weapon that deals damage through multiple targets in a straight line.

FRACK YOU TIE-SWARMS!

Sorta OT, Did any ships have anything like a rail gun? A rail gun could work as a super powerful, super expensive cannon.

Rail gun

9 points

5 attack

When firing, measure your firing arc by placing the range ruler inside the pegs as you would a maneuver. Each ship in its path must roll defense dice. This Attack has no range. Ships outside range 3 must double their defense dice.

I like your jamming beam idea doing no damage but reducing one enemy models, no way to spam it so it's not over powered.

Enhanced tractor beam

same effects but adds if your ship bumped into the enemy ship this turn you may still use this action. gain 2 stress tokens and the ship you target has to do the same maneuver as you on the next turn.

"large ship only"

I feel like a larger ship would have a stronger tractor beam and would be able to manipulate another ship's flight path more

didn't Fel use the tractor beam to steer his missiles?

Only thing I'd change is make it "reduce by 2, minimum of 1" on each.

Tractor beams depend on the size of the target, so a heavier ship is going to feel less effect than a lighter one; so an X-Wing drops its agility by 50% while a TIE Fighter drops its agility by 67% and a Y-Wing is unaffected.

-1 attack is a bit weak for the jamming beam, so -2 feels better, plus minimum 0 would only be relevant on stacked jammers or HWKs.

It would also be nice to shut down secondary weapons with it.

Edit: one thing I don't like is the action trigger.

Doesn't make sense why a pilot with a stress can't use beams, but can line up and fire with his other weapons.

It also makes very little sense that the high PS pilots are much less able to arc-dodge it like they can with regular weapon shots.

Passive abilities or actions that take up a cannon slot make a lot of sense and would free up ships with cannon slots that don't see much use (Firesprays, for instance) to put something else in there.

Tractor Beam. Cannon. 3 points. When you attack a ship at Range 1-2, you may reduce the target ship's Agility by 1 (to a minimum of 0) for this attack.

Magnetic Grappler. Cannon. 2 points. Action: You may assign a Stress token to a single enemy ship within your front firing arc at Range 1.

Particle Beam Upgrade. Cannon. 4 points. When you make a primary weapon attack from your front arc, if the attack misses, you may choose to make a second primary weapon attack against a different target also in your front arc.

I like this for a tractor beam:

Tractor Beam

Range 1

Expend a target lock and attack with 3 dice. If you hit, cancel all dice and assign a tractor token.

Tractor token: you cannot take evade actions and all manoeuvres are red. After you do a red manoeuvre remove this token.

What I feel this does is, if you get close to a stressed ship and use this you can force them to go where you want. The requirement of spending a target lock prevents you from cheaping out and walking an enemy off the board.

Only thing I'd change is make it "reduce by 2, minimum of 1" on each.

Tractor beams depend on the size of the target, so a heavier ship is going to feel less effect than a lighter one; so an X-Wing drops its agility by 50% while a TIE Fighter drops its agility by 67% and a Y-Wing is unaffected.

-1 attack is a bit weak for the jamming beam, so -2 feels better, plus minimum 0 would only be relevant on stacked jammers or HWKs.

It would also be nice to shut down secondary weapons with it.

Edit: one thing I don't like is the action trigger.

Doesn't make sense why a pilot with a stress can't use beams, but can line up and fire with his other weapons.

It also makes very little sense that the high PS pilots are much less able to arc-dodge it like they can with regular weapon shots.

Bringing beams /directly/ into action economy is iffy, and, like Cloak, ends up "devaluing" standard actions to some extent.

I posted some of this in another thread, but I feel like TL-spending would work well as the cost for beam weapons. You keep your action on the turn you want to use the beam, but it requires setup. FCS isn't as broken as it sounds either, simply because you can and do often lose arc on a target you've just shot.

Now, whether it should be integrated into PS timing or simply use one end of the activation phase is a tricky call.

The direct agility modification is neat but if you want to adjust the effect differently between the base sizes it may get overly complex for card text.

My tractor beam idea was simply to increase the target's maneuver difficulty (green->white->red) by one step, though this pretty much requires a beginning-of-activation timing, and I'm not sure I don't like the AGI mod more.